26. Orbital Sciences

Orbital is wrapping up development of its new Antares rocket and Cygnus space module that together are slated to resupply the International Space Station with cargo for the on-board crew. The missions are set to originate from Wallops Island, Va., where they will likely be visible from Washington. Orbital also completed production at its Dulles manufacturing facility of five new commercial communications satellites during 2012 for customers around the world.

Trivia

Orbital founders David Thompson, Bruce Ferguson and Scott Webster met at Harvard Business School in 1980, where they worked together on a NASA-sponsored study of commercial space applications -- their work ultimately led to a Space Foundation prize for space business research.